Dr John Gattorna, managing partner in Accenture's supply chain practice, is scathing of the supply chain efforts of most Australian companies, saying barely a handful manage their supply chain efforts well. Long term, he predicts, that could be disastrous for Australia's competitive edge, particularly in the manufacturing sector. "Integration within companies is improving because of the IT that is now suddenly becoming available," Gattorna says. "IT and the supply chain, therefore, across companies or between companies, is improving rapidly because of the Internet and the ability to communicate up and down the chain. Australian companies have been relatively slow, however, particularly in the manufacturing sector, which is the one sector that really needs to speed up - that is, what's left of it."

Gattorna says that just as IT has improved integration within companies, the Internet can improve the supply chain both across and between companies because it makes it much easier to communicate up and down the chain. He says too few Australian companies have a continuous improvement focus, however, and even fewer are showing the kind of leadership required to take advantage of c-commerce. "A lot of Australian companies have had a few runs of things in the e-commerce world, chucked a few million dollars in here and there, and tried things out. Now, because it hasn't worked, they've all gone back into their shells and they're not making decisions about anything," he says. "Australian senior managers must begin to show leadership in developing marketplaces which are appropriate for this area of the world rather than sitting back and waiting for international marketplaces to reach Australia. We simply cannot afford to lose the benefits by delaying implementation and operation of new supply chain collaboration and marketplaces for two to three years," he says.

Still, as Dulux's experience shows, removing cataracts from the eyes of senior executives won't be enough to overcome the many barriers to efficient Internet connectivity between business processes within supply chains, and e-collaboration has a long way to go.